Fallen Ladybug
by Dongyrn
Summary: "Look at me. Just look at me and stay awake, okay? Can you do that?" Ruby/Blake (Ladybug) with Yang. Fourteenth story in the Lemonade series and sequel to North Pole Mirror.


**Standard Disclaimer:** All rights belong to those whose rights they belong to, primarily the glorious minds at Rooster Teeth, though quite namely not me. Don't own a thing.

* * *

Blake Belladonna had certainly kissed her fair share of guys, as well as one girl back at an early age though that was just on a dare. And she'd had one serious relationship, Adam, which had not ended… well. In any case, she was no stranger to romance, or so she thought.

But at that very moment, snuggled into the embrace of her girlfriend, team leader, and possibly the best friend she'd ever had, the Faunus couldn't help but think that kissing her made every other past event pale in comparison.

It certainly wasn't Ruby's skill, as she'd been fairly inexperienced even in that regard when they had started dating. As with all things that the diminutive redhead set her mind to, however, she was a fast and diligent study. It showed in her combat skill and leadership ability, always looking for improvement and when the time called for it, in the targets of her razor-sharp focus. The latter was certainly at odds with her oftentimes carefree attitude and short attention span, but once she focused onto something she absolutely did not let go, an admirable enough quality for a sniper.

Being the target of such focus could be a bit overwhelming, though in this case Blake decided she most certainly did not mind one single whit.

In fact, kissing Ruby was the closest Blake had come in a very long while to feeling… safe. Safe and warm and unbelievably happy. If Blake had been asked just a few short months ago if she even deserved such feelings, with everything she'd been through, she would have vehemently denied the notion.

But now, after having been with this jubilant bundle of energetic enthusiasm who unconditionally handed her heart into her care, she felt as if maybe, just maybe, she could deserve such happiness. Even in spite of her past, what she'd misguidedly done in the name of Faunus equality. All because of one redheaded diminutive girl who believed in her.

Blake let out a soft moan that dissolved unwillingly into a purr, lost in the sensation of Ruby's soft lips and tongue, and her deft hands running up and down her back. She tightened her grip on her girlfriend, her arm wrapped around her waist pulling her closer into her lap while her other hand, entwined in the dark red hairs at the back of Ruby's head, continued to hold her gently.

Eventually, of course, all good things must come to an end.

Ruby leapt off of Blake's lap with a surprised _yelp_ as the door to their dorm room banged open. Yang stood in the doorway, smirking widely with her fists on her hips.

"Makeout session is over, kids!" the blonde bruiser announced gleefully.

"Yang," the Faunus said with a slight growl from where she still sat cross-legged on the floor. "I know where you sleep."

"Yeah!" Ruby joined in from her sprawled position next to her. "Don't make us go into revenge mode, sis!"

"Well, dear sister and partner of mine," the blonde replied snarkily. "If you hadn't silenced your scrolls, you would have noticed our calling to tell you YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE LANDING PAD FIVE MINUTES AGO!"

" _Eep_!" Ruby squawked, scrambling to her feet. "How'd that happen? We still had half an hour!"

"Um, time flies when you're having fun?" Blake answered sheepishly, grabbing her field bag and accepting Ruby's helping hand to rise as well.

Yang rolled her eyes as she turned to leave. "Last one to the transport gets first watch tonight. And no semblance use, Ruby!"

"Aw, maaan!" the redhead grumbled as the couple closed the door behind them. "Short legs suck."

"Well, Little Gem," Blake grinned as they took off in a sprint after the blonde brawler. "If we tie, then we could share watch."

"I like the way you think, Blakey!" Ruby chortled.

The Faunus glanced at her girlfriend, noting the excited glint in her silver eyes as they ran side by side. _Yeah, maybe I do deserve this. Maybe._

They made it to the Bulldog air transport ten minutes late to be confronted by a very irate Weiss, who was standing by the idling craft with her arms folded and a tapping foot.

"I would have expected you two to be more responsible," she stated in full-on lecture mode.

"Hmm, true, much like arriving to the mission planning session on time, yes?" Blake answered straight-faced, reminding the heiress of last night's tardiness.

Weiss opened her mouth to retort but immediately snapped it shut again with a bright blush as she remembered the cause of her lateness, that being a certain tall, emerald-eyed redhead. With a huff, she whirled around and stalked into the waiting craft.

"Good one," Ruby snickered, bumping Blake with her shoulder as she followed her partner.

"Thanks for taking first watch, Blakey!" their other teammate called out, already ensconced within the Bulldog.

"What?" Ruby squawked indignantly. "We arrived together!"

"But your foot was on the ramp first, sis," Yang grinned.

Ruby grumbled incoherently as they took their seats and the small air transport began to rise.

"It's alright, sweetie," Blake murmured as she leaned over towards her irritable leader. "Fair is fair."

"Doesn't mean I won't sneak off to join you anyway," Ruby mumbled petulantly.

"Why, Ruby Rose," the raven-haired girl exclaimed quietly with mock surprise. "You are such a bad girl!"

The redhead in question simply folded her arms and smiled innocently in response.

It only took them an hour of flight to reach the site of their mission. Though still first year students, their team was one of a select few deemed advanced and skilled enough to undertake such outings outside the walls of Vale without huntsmen escorts. In this particular case they were investigating reports of increased Grimm activity, a common enough mission parameter.

After the Bulldog dropped them off the four friends quickly and efficiently set up camp, their tents arranged in a circle around the campfire that they'd light once darkness arrived.

"Hey, Ruby," Yang called out as she walked into the campsite, dropping a large armful of wood in the middle. "You going to set your tent up?"

"Um, well," her sister replied hesitantly. "You see, I figured I'd, well… bunk with… Blakey? Y'know, my girlfriend?"

"Oh." The blonde stood there for a moment, blinking her eyes. "Right. Got it." She turned then and dug into her pack for an energy bar. "Still going with the mission plan?" she asked over her shoulder, her voice studiously casual.

"Yep," Ruby replied cheerfully, missing the audible cue that Blake had picked up on. "Patrol by partners, Yang and Blake out first. Weiss and I will guard the campsite."

Yang nodded, still not looking at the others as she stood to face northward. "Ready, Blake?"

The Faunus sighed. _Looks like we're going to have another talk while we patrol._ "Sure," she replied evenly, gliding forward with her usual quiet lithe. She paused at her girlfriend's side to give her a quick kiss.

"See you soon," she murmured against Ruby's lips.

"Be careful," Ruby whispered. "Love you."

"Love you, too, Little Gem."

Yang and Blake walked side by side through the dense underbrush, the sky only intermittently visible through the scraggly overhang of the trees. Blake noted absently that her brash partner had managed to pick up on a few of her stealthy skills and moved much quieter than she would have back when they first became a team.

Granted, she was nowhere near Blake's level of covertness, but few were, really.

The rest of the Faunus' attention was focused on their mission, scanning the foliage and ground for tracks.

"So, Blake," Yang began quietly, her amethyst eyes also roaming about restlessly. "I'm, um… sorry for interrupting you and Ruby earlier."

Blake glanced aside at her partner warily, not expecting an apology as her opening remark. "It's fine," she replied just as quietly. "You were within your rights, we lost track of time."

"Yeah, well… still. It was a rude way of doing it. And I could have, um… interrupted worse things, I suppose…"

 _Here we go._ "There wouldn't have been anything worse to interrupt," Blake stated patiently, deciding to cut right to the chase.

"Oh. Well." Yang seemed to flounder a bit, seemingly startled to have been relieved of all her planned conversational subtlety at getting to her point.

"Yang," the Faunus sighed. "We're not doing anything. Really."

"Still?"

"Yes, still. We're very happy doing what we are."

"Both of you? I mean…" Yang physically groped for her words, her hands waving in front of her as she walked much as Ruby herself was apt to do. "She hasn't, um… wanted more?"

"No, she hasn't as of yet."

"Oh."

They walked for another minute or two before Yang spoke up again. "I think the damn anticipation is the worst part for me," the blonde groused.

Blake almost missed her next step, coming down on a twig and causing an uncharacteristic _snap_ of noise. "Pardon?"

"I just… I do fine for awhile, you know? I don't really think about it all that much," Yang admitted softly. "And then all of the sudden out of the blue I start to obsess over it."

"Should I be concerned that you really think about your sister having sex that much?" Blake joked, trying to relieve the tension.

"Seriously, Blake. Sometimes… Sometimes I just wish you guys would go ahead and do the deed and get it over with," Yang admitted, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

The Faunus shook her head, struck momentarily speechless. Another minute passed until she could clear her throat and muster up a response.

"That's… Well, I don't quite know how to reply to that. But it's not going to happen anytime soon, as far as I can tell."

"But you'd be open to it?" Yang asked sharply, glancing towards her for the first time since they'd started the conversation. "If she were to ask?"

"Yes," Blake nodded simply.

Yang nodded as well. "Yeah, I should have figured that," she sighed.

"But I will in no way pressure her or encourage her," Blake tried to reassure her partner. "Yang…"

"No, no I get it," Yang cut her off somewhat brusquely. Her tone immediately softened apologetically. "I mean… yeah. Thanks, Blakey, I really appreciate your… honesty."

Blake smiled at her friend softly. "Anytime."

Another fifteen minutes later they finally came across some tracks. Unfortunately, they were somewhat discouraging.

"That," Yang proclaimed in a whisper as she crouched next to the Faunus, "is a whole lot of Ursae."

"Hmm," Blake agreed softly. "Should we go get the others?"

"Let's track them first, figure out where they are. That's what we're out here for, right? Save us time when we're all together."

Blake nodded and gracefully rose to her feet again. She unlimbered Gambol Shroud, noting that Yang had already brought Ember Celica down into their active position, primed and ready. Without another word the pair stalked forward, their ears and eyes peeled for any further sign of Grimm.

When they found the group of Ursa an hour later, they crouched at the edge of the clearing warily.

"What exactly do you call a group of Ursa?" Yang whispered idly. "A pack?"

"I think it's a sleuth," Blake replied distractedly as she counted the large Grimm gathered.

"Really, a sleuth?"

Blake's only reply was a soft hum of affirmation. "I count sixteen," she finally stated quietly. "Only three small ones, all the rest are fairly old."

"Whelp, that sucks," Yang murmured. "Definitely time to go get the others."

She made to get up, but Blake's hand whipped out to grab her arm firmly. Yang opened her mouth, but her partner shook her head slightly with a finger pressed to her own lips. Yang noted her bow was twitching furiously, and with a irritable huff her partner pulled the end of it to uncover the most obvious sign of her Faunus heritage. Once she did, her amber eyes widened.

Blake pulled Yang in close and placed her mouth right up against her ear. "Something's coming up behind us," she breathed. "Following our trail. It's… big. But stealthy."

Yang pulled back and nodded determinedly. She made a slight motion towards the flank, and Blake nodded as well in reply. The pair of them slinked off in that direction, attempting to circle around the gathering of Grimm and away from whatever was stalking the pair of huntresses-in-training.

They didn't get very far before there was an earth-shattering roar back where they had been observing the other Ursae. The pair spun on their heels to see a mountainous mass of black fur rise up on its hind legs, easily twice the size of the largest Ursa they'd encountered to date. Blazing red eyes set into a scarred bone mask locked onto the two girls hatefully.

"Oh, that's a very big Ursa," Yang commented, far more calmly that the situation warranted.

Blake, on the other hand, had no such compunction. "Run!" she yelled, setting words into action.

Without further ado the two of them charged off through the dense undergrowth, the crashing sounds of pursuing Ursae loud in their ears. Blake nimbly hopped over obstructing logs and bushes, while from the sounds of it Yang had abandoned all pretence of grace and simply smashed her way through any such hindrances.

All the while the noise of pursuit was overlaid by a strange noise, close to a barking sound but with a keening wail as an overtone.

"What is that sound?" Blake shouted the question over her shoulder.

"I dunno!" Yang yelled in reply, still close on her partner's heels. "Not gonna stop and ask, though!"

Years of training and experience with the White Fang had given Blake an almost otherworldly anticipatory sense. She'd managed to hone it to a fine edge while at Beacon, and was not a little bit proud of the fact that there was nothing that could take her by surprise.

Nothing, that is, except for the Ursa laying in ambush right along their flight path.

"Look out!" Blake warned as she leapt gracefully over the outstretched claws. As she soared through the air, twisting around to fire off a few rounds with her weapon, she felt the icy tendrils of real terror begin to close around her heart.

The Faunus wasn't nearly on the same level of intellect as, say, Weiss. She did well on her grades, mostly as a result of hard work and diligent class notes, but the one thing she had going for her was her speed of thought. She could quickly grasp a situation and act on it, not always successfully but she deemed it to be one of her more useful traits.

In the span of time it took for her to take to the air, her mind quickly assessed the situation and reported on the very real danger they were in.

 _Those sounds were the large Ursa, communicating with its brethren… it set up an ambush for us!_ Blake landed on her feet nimbly, extending Gambol Shroud into its katana form to slash at the Ursa's hind quarters. _It must be truly ancient, and we are so very far outclassed here!_

"Yang!" she shouted over the agonized roar of the wounded Ursa. "We have to go! Now!"

Her only reply were the sounds of Ember Celica firing explosively and Yang's yelled curses as she engaged what must have been more Ursa that had encircled them.

"Oum," the raven-haired girl breathed. She had to get to her partner quickly to support her.

Blake jumped back to avoid the strike from the Ursa in front of her, leaving a shadow image behind to take the hit. She set her feet against the tree that she landed up against and then pushed forward again, sweeping under the Ursa's claws to eviscerate it deftly. Rolling under its legs and avoiding the spill of gore, the Faunus leapt forward again towards the sounds of combat.

Her partner must have gotten pushed backwards, as she was several yards back now. Three large Ursa were closing in, with another pair already disintegrating at her feet. Blake paused as she saw movement on the edge of the scene, the mammoth Ursa circling around the edges as if waiting for her prey to tire.

 _Oh, sweet Oum protect us, that Ursa is sending the other Grimm in as fodder to wear Yang down… How can any Grimm be that intelligent?_

And then the enormous shape paused to send its searing gaze straight at Blake. A new sound rose over the din that chilled the Faunus to the bone.

It was _laughing_ at her.

Blake felt weak at the knees, but she had to get Yang out of there before they were both very, very dead. She let out a shout of challenge as she fired Gambol Shroud off on the end of her ribbon, sending it into the flank of one of the advancing Ursa. She pulled and followed it in, landing with her feet on its shoulder. Whipping her weapon towards her again, she extended it back into a blade once more and stabbed down viciously, riding it down to the ground.

Just in time to be backhanded by the powerful behemoth Ursa who had somehow darted in with a speed that should not have been possible for its bulk.

Her right arm took the brunt of the hit, and while her aura shielded it from most of the damage it still went numb from the impact. Likely it would have easily broken without the benefit of the attribute that made all huntsmen such a powerful threat, but it was of little comfort as Blake went spinning through the air uncontrollably and right over the edge of the unseen cliff that the Ursae had been driving them towards, Yang's voice shouting her name following her over.

Blake's quick mind rapidly took in her dire situation, and with a flick of her wrist she changed Gambol Shroud back into its Kusarigama form, firing it off towards a tree on the edge of the cliff. Unfortunately with her numb arm she missed her target and she continued spiralling downwards. The ground rushed up to meet her, and blackness enveloped the raven-haired girl.

Meanwhile Yang had delivered a finishing blow to the last of the other two Ursae that had surrounded her, smashing a powerful fist right into its face and cracking the bone mask in two. She whirled about, looking for more threats but the forest became suddenly silent. It was broken a few heartbeats later by an ominous chuckle, the sound like the grating of teeth.

"That," Yang announced to no one in particular, "is eerie as hell. I'm outta here."

She took a running jump and fired Ember Celica at her feet, sending her soaring over towards where she had seen Blake uncontrollably headed.

"Blake!" she called out as she tumbled to a stop, worried for her partner's safety. "Blake, where'd you- _Whoa_!"

She stopped herself just in time to keep from tumbling off of the steep cliff. Peering over the edge, she spied a small and unmoving form at the bottom far below.

"Oh, Dust," she breathed. "Hang on Blakey, I'm coming…"

Crashing noises sounded from behind her, and without thinking she flung herself over the edge. Halfway down she fired her weapons again several times, slowing her descent until she could tumble to a stop.

She stood up and glanced above her. Silhouetted against the darkening sky was the monstrous form of the huge Grimm that had been taunting them. It seemed to regard her steadily with its burning red eyes before seeming to give them up as not worth the effort, turning back around and shuffling through the underbrush.

Yang heaved out a sigh of relief that was cut short once she spied the crumpled form of her partner.

"Oh, no… Blake!" She darted forward to where the Faunus had dashed up against a cluster of rocks. It was obvious she had at least a broken arm, but she was also bleeding profusely from her head.

"No, no, no…" Yang moaned, her hands hovering over her partner. "Okay, let's think, keep it together Xiao Long…"

She quickly assessed Blake for further injury while she unwound her scarf from around her neck, carefully using it to clean off the raven-haired girl's face to find the wound there. To her relief it seemed to be fairly minor, though she'd have a significant lump on her head until her aura could heal her. Unable to find anything more than scratches, she concentrated on putting pressure on the head wound and eyed the arm warily. It was sticking out at a slightly odd angle, but fortunately hadn't broken the skin.

"Hey, wakey wakey Blakey," she said softly, stroking her partner's cheek. "C'mon, gimme a sign here, just open your eyes, okay?"

Blake's eyelids fluttered open, her amber orbs unfocused. "Y- Yang?" she murmured unsteadily.

"Oh, thank Oum," the blonde breathed. "You're gonna be okay, Blake, just stay with me please, alright?"

"Tired," Blake sighed, her eyes beginning to sag shut again. Yang's panic reemerged as she desperately tried to recall how to treat for a possible concussion. The only thing that came to her was that she had to keep her partner conscious.

"Look at me," Yang demanded frantically. "Just look at me and stay awake, okay? Can you do that? Blake?"

The Faunus opened her eyes again, gazing up into Yang's worried face. "Hey," she breathed.

"Hey yourself," Yang murmured, her eyes filling with tears. "Can you stay with me?"

"Not goin' anywhere," Blake mumbled before wincing. "Arm hurts."

"Yeah… it's pretty bad off. Don't move it yet, okay?"

"'Kay."

Yang gently wrapped her scarf around Blake's forehead, carefully feeling around her head for any more bleeding. Blake reassured her that she didn't seem to hurt too badly anywhere else, though she was sporting a massive headache.

"Did you… call... others?" Blake murmured as Yang finished the loose knot.

"Not yet, lemme do that now…" She pulled out her scroll and sighed at the lack of any reception. "Looks like we gotta do this the hard way, Blakey."

"You goin'... carry me?"

"Yup."

"How… romantic."

Yang snorted a laugh. "Well, my cunning plan has been revealed, I got us ambushed by the most evil giant bitch of an Ursa we've ever seen just so I could sweep you off your feet."

Blake chuckled weakly in reply, used to her partner's unabashedly flirtatious antics. "Won't work."

"Hey, I can be charming, don't write me off yet!" Yang protested cheerfully, carefully gathering the Faunus up in her arms after fastening Gambol Shroud on her own waist. She eyed the broken arm warily. "Um, okay, so that arm's gonna be a problem…"

"Put it… on my stomach."

"Oh, right. Yeah, that'd work. Brace yourself, okay?"

Blake nodded, her face set determinedly as she gazed up at the sky. Yang removed her hands from around her partner and gently tried to move her arm up, stopping when Blake hissed in pain.

"Just do it," the Faunus grunted irritably.

Yang nodded wordlessly and complied, earning a pained shout as she eased it into place. Quickly sweeping Blake up in her arms again, the blonde stood and began gingerly picking her way among the rocks. She noted that the swaying gait was causing Blake to become sleepy once more.

"No you don't," she chided. "Gotta stay awake for me, okay? I'd heal you, but I don't know how to push my aura into another person."

"Deplorable… lack of training," Blake joked weakly.

Yang snorted another laugh. "Hey, my semblance is tricky enough, if I were to try I'd have an even chance of setting a person on fire as it is."

"That's not… very conductive to healing."

"Nope."

Yang was about to hop over a log when she glanced down and thought better of her actions, instead choosing to walk around the obstruction. "So," she drawled with a grin. "I got no chance at all with the kitty cat in my arms, huh?"

"Nope," Blake replied in much the same tone as Yang had earlier.

The blonde chuckled, taking her partner's humor as a good sign. "And why not? I got the looks, I got the big guns here," she gave her assets a little wiggle, causing Blake to let out an indignant groan. "Nora sure appreciates them."

"And what about Nora?" Blake replied, going along with the banter, her voice sounding a bit stronger now the longer she stayed awake.

"Eh, she'd be fine with a threesome."

"Eww, no."

"No?"

"No. Just… no."

"Aww, you're crushing my dreams here, Blakey."

"I so do not want to hear about how I factor into your sick dreams."

Yang laughed heartily as she strode along, glancing around to make sure she had her bearings. She'd managed to skirt around the cliff and was now back up at the level they'd been before, and after examining the position of the setting sun she got them pointed in the direction of their camp.

"All those trashy novels you read, I'm sure you've come across worse than what I could dream of," Yang scoffed lightly.

"Doubtful. And I don't want to risk my sanity. Besides, you're missing one very important quality."

"Oh?" Yang asked, genuinely curious. "And what would that be?"

Blake smiled up at her partner. "You're not your sister."

"True enough," Yang admitted. "You got it pretty bad for my little sister, don'tcha?"

The Faunus nodded her head, her smile widening and her amber eyes soft. "Yeah, I do."

"Never would have expected it when we first started out."

"No, I certainly wasn't looking for anything like this."

They walked along in companionable silence, Yang more confident in Blake's ability to stay awake. A grin lit up her face as a thought occurred to her.

"So… Does this mean you could end up as my sister-in-law?"

Blake blushed brightly. "Hmm," she hummed in reply.

"Uh-huh. I know that 'hmm', that means a definite 'yes' but you're unwilling to come right out and say it."

The Faunus looked up at her again, somewhat startled that her partner was able to read her nonverbals so accurately already.

Yang just smirked down at her. "Not as dumb as I look," she said cheerfully.

"Never have I once implied you were dumb," Blake replied softly. "And… yes, I have thought about it. On occasion." At Yang's incredulous look, she had the grace to glance away in embarrassment. "Okay, maybe more than just on occasion."

"Yep," Yang sighed. "You're smitten."

"You will not hear me deny that fact."

"You gonna wait till we graduate?"

"To ask her? I don't know." Blake bit her lower lip thoughtfully. "We haven't discussed it much… Except that we both agree we can't see a future without each other in it."

"Really?" Yang said, surprised. "Wow. She… Ruby's really not a little girl anymore, is she…?"

"No, she most definitely is not," Blake replied gently. "You okay with us being a permanent item?"

"You know what…?" the blonde replied musingly. "Yeah. Yeah, I am. How could I not be, with two of my favorite people in all of Remnant?"

Blake laughed softly, reaching up to pat Yang's cheek with her good hand. "Don't go all sappy on me," she teased. "I'll start to think Nora's domesticated you."

"Ha!" Yang barked out a laugh. "Nora? Domesticated? Have you spent any time at all with that girl?"

Her noise must have carried through the forest enough that it got the rest of their team's attention, as Ruby's panicked calls carried clearly over to them.

"Over here, Ru!" Yang called back. In a lower voice, she murmured to Blake, "Prepare to be glomped."

"I could use some Ruby glomping," Blake sighed wearily. "It's been one Grimmshitty day."

Yang laughed again at her partner's uncharacteristic crassness. "That it has, Blakey. That it has."

A short while later they were surrounded by both Weiss and a very frantic Ruby, the latter bouncing up and down inconsolably and on the verge of tears.

"Oh my Oum, Blakey! What happened!" the small redhead exclaimed. "You were so late, and then we couldn't reach you, and I wanted to go looking but Weiss said no, and I figured yeah that'd be a bad idea to wander about without knowing where you were, and then we heard the gunfire way off but couldn't figure out where from, and Weiss made me stay again, but I was so worried and I kept wanting to run off after you…"

As Ruby paused to take a deep breath, Weiss finally got a word in edgewise. "I had to literally sit on her to keep her from running off after you two," she grumped.

Yang knelt down to let Ruby get closer to her girlfriend, though she kept her arms firmly around Blake. "Watch her arm," she warned. "It's broken, and she's got a head wound as well."

"Oh, no!" Ruby wailed. She had held herself back from the anticipated glomping and restricted herself to frantic kissing of the raven-haired girl, cradling her head in her small hands.

Yang looked distinctly uncomfortable as she gazed about the small clearing while her sister made out with her partner in her arms. "Well, _this_ is a thing," she commented wryly.

Before Weiss could make a comment in reply, Blake pulled away with a gasp. "Ruby…"

Yang looked down finally to see a lingering glow around the Faunus slowly fade away. Blake pulled the scarf away from her head with her good hand and probed the wound gingerly, but it was completely healed now, not even a bump to show for it.

"Did you just… push your aura into her?" Yang asked incredulously. "I didn't know you could do that, Ru!"

Ruby shrugged her shoulders unconcernedly. "Never tried to before."

"But how did you do that?" Blake asked wonderingly. "I mean… my headache is completely gone!" She cradled her injured arm in her other hand as she slowly shifted herself out of Yang's arms and to her feet.

"Well, duh," Ruby grinned up at her girlfriend. "Our hearts are joined, why wouldn't our auras be as well?"

Weiss snorted derisively. "That's not at all how it works," she complained, but then paused. "However… that was still one of the most romantic things I've ever heard," she begrudgingly amended.

"But I'm still absolutely not a romantic!" the small redhead adamantly declared as she snuggled into the side of Blake, careful not to jostle her arm as the team began walking back to the campsite.

"Suuure you're not," Yang rolled her eyes with a grin, walking behind Blake and watching to make sure she didn't stumble.

"I'm not, honest!" Ruby protested. "I got a reputation to maintain, right? Guys?"

By that time they had arrived back at the campsite, and the others couldn't contain their snickering any longer. Blake sat down with a sigh, and once her arm was in her lap she hooked her good hand into Ruby's neckline and pulled her down into another long kiss, cutting off her protests.

"Right, that's the second one, I'm outta here," Yang proclaimed as she threw her arms up into the air dramatically. She shook her hair out and turned towards her tent. "I'm gonna call for pickup now, wake me when the transport arrives."

Weiss let a grin creep across her face as she turned on her heel in the other direction. "I'll keep watch," she said quietly as she walked a short distance away.

None of this entered into Blake's consciousness as she once again lost herself in the feeling of Ruby's lips, the girl now crouched down next to her and the pain in her broken arm fading to the recesses of her awareness. The diminutive redhead was being very careful not to jostle her injury, but for all that was pouring a considerable amount of enthusiasm into the kiss, obviously relieved at her safe return.

 _Maybe I do deserve this,_ Blake thought to herself dreamily. _And if I haven't done anything to deserve it, then I'll damn well earn it by loving this amazing girl with all of my heart._

* * *

 **A/N:** So not my usual fluffy drabble, as half the story didn't have much to do with the pairings here, the rest having Yang being the protective big sister to both Ruby and Blake. I was inspired in reading the excellent _Bad Times And Good Times_ by the fantastically eloquent **momoxtoshiro**. It's a collection of shorts with different pairings done randomly, and using quotations pulled from a list of similar Hurt/Comfort in a theme. I absolutely love this idea.

The quotation used was the same from the synopsis: "Look at me. Just look at me and stay awake, okay? Can you do that?"

It still counts as the fourteenth story in my _Lemonade_ series, though. And no, I still don't intend on Ladybug progressing any further with their relationship, they're just fine and dandy as they are, Yang will have to suck it up and deal with it.

Couple more notes, I started using the proper term for the small air transports, Bulldog. Previously I was using airship to refer to all of the collective flying transportation methods, which I found to be erroneous when I was doing some reading on the RWBY wiki. Ah, well. Better late than never. And yes, a sleuth is the name for a group of bears. Weird, huh?

Much love for reading, and further hugs go out to reviewers of my previous stories that I haven't recognized yet:

 **AntonSlavik020:** I usually like writing hurt/comfort more than reading it, but yeah there's just something about Weiss that pulls at my heart strings.

 **ODST110:** I shall keep the lovely shrooms all to myself then. Yummy. Also, Dashingicecream is a genius on many levels, love their stuff. Gonna have to go browse for that particular piece now…

 **Live to anger the World:** (Re: _Ladybug Stitches_ ) Yep pulled the Kintsukuroi from you, glad you liked it!

Here's the full listing of the _Lemonade_ series, in order:

 **Pink Lemonade  
** **Just A Little Ladybug  
** **North Pole Weather  
** **Snow Angel  
** **Sweet, Sweet Lemonade  
** **Ladybug Trails  
** **Trifecta  
** **Yuletide Lemonade  
** **Eros  
** **Lotus Song  
** **Strawberry Lemonade  
** **Ladybug Stitches  
** **North Pole Mirror  
** ** _Fallen Ladybug_  
Sugar Rush  
North Pole Faith**

Stay shiny!


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